Bonello headlines MLK celebration

Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream; Alethea Bonello is working to keep that dream alive.
Bonello, youth director for the Southeast Region NAACP, will present a speech entitled “Keeping the Dream Alive” at 4 p.m., Wednesday, Jan. 21, in the President’s Dining Room of Maxwell Student Union on the Georgia College & State University campus.
The Martin Luther King Jr. celebration, sponsored by the GC&SU Office of Multicultural Affairs, Black Student Alliance and the GC&SU NAACP Chapter, is free and open to the public.
“We want students to understand what the [Dr. King's] speech was about and learn the fundamentals concerning the speech,” Katrina Mcclain, director of Multicultural affairs said. “She will also be telling students to follow their dreams and not to stop until they are satisfied with their goals.”
A native of Flushing, N.Y., Bonello received her bachelor of arts degree in 1998 from Stetson University, near Daytona Beach, Fla., majoring in secondary social science education with minors in history and political science. She was a Stetson University Hollis Leadership Scholar and Quenzar Scholar; at her graduation she was the senior female commencement speaker.
Bonello has been involved with the NAACP since 1989. She has held various positions, including state youth president of Florida, regional youth chairwoman and National Youth Work representative. She was awarded the Juanita Jackson Mitchell Award, the Gloster B. Current Award and won 1st Place in Poetry at the National ACTSO competition. She became a life member of the NAACP in 1994.
As youth director of the Southeast Region NAACP, Bonello mentors and directs students in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. Besides being a youth director for the southeast region, she has been instrumental in organizing NAACP mobilizations in the Southeast Region, such as King Day at the Dome 2000, March on Tallahassee 2000 and the Adams Mark Protests in 2001.
“She does a lot with college students and she will be a perfect fit for this,” Mcclain said. “She really does a lot with the NAACP and can give the students a better understanding of the speech.”
She has also participated in a semester program in law studies at American University in Washington D.C. and interned at the Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile and Delinquency Programs.
She is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. and Pi Sigma Alpha, a Political Science Honorary.
For more information concerning the event, contact the Office of Multicultural Affairs at (478) 445-4233.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Jan 16 2004. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry